Quote from: Seanchai;347793And when it doesn't sell as well as the folks making these arguments say it should, maybe they'll shut the fuck up about introductory boxed sets. (Or, as I invited you to do, Pundit, prove us wrong by creating your own.)

Of course, they won't shut up as these arguments are based on nostalgia and actual facts just get in the way of the remembering, wishing, hoping, pining...

Outside of TSR, which other game companies produced "basic box sets" of their games comparable in quality to the Mentzer basic D&D box set?  Were these "basic box sets" a success too?

Quote from: Seanchai;347812How much work does a board game require outside of the game? You can just pick it up, set out the board, and play, right?

Seanchai

Arkham Horror takes quite a while to setup, and literally takes hours to play to completion (it's essentially a boardgame with RPG elements -- characters with stats and everything), whereas an RPG you can stop anywhere you want.

As far as I'm aware, the DA boxed set will also ship with an adventure, and if the system is as simple as they're making it out to be, it shouldn't be too hard for someone to pick up the basics of GMing.  If the adventure takes the characters through the full 5 levels, and each boxed set continues on like that, I don't see GM work being a big issue.

Update: I have now the PDF's of box one.  I am at the mercy of impulse shopping... is there a group or something I can join?

Anyway: I have NO idea what Jenny Arcane was going on about regarding red text and hard to read formatting, as there is NO evidence of that in the PDF copy of the book.

The DMG: 66 pages, lots of high quality artwork, bog standard gaming advice (including a mandatory section on 'problem players' that I've seen a hundred times), a redonkulously short 'adversary' section, leading me to believe Ferelden is a relatively nice place to live compared to the average D&D world.  I won't dignify a built in adventure, as I have no use for such things.

There is a short chapter (three pages?) on magic items, and a one page magic item 'list', broken into minor/temporary items and 'cool shit' items.

Verdict: Not bad. Mostly a waste of time for old hand GM's, but a new player might get a bit of use out of it. Its short/small enough that isn't a massive waste of time.  It does seem virtually unnecessary for moment to moment play at the table, as aside from advice the only real 'rules' in it would be the 'standard DC table'.

I'm still going through the player's guide.  Seems quick and easy, and perhaps not quite as bad as I'd feared on the 'races'... though still fairly limited.  Of note for the CRPG players: Grey Wardens are name checked and you are referred to the second box set for more information.

Quote from: Peregrin;347819Arkham Horror takes quite a while to setup, and literally takes hours to play to completion (it's essentially a boardgame with RPG elements -- characters with stats and everything), whereas an RPG you can stop anywhere you want.

Is "quite a while" the time it takes to learn a game, create or familiarize yourself with it, roll up characters, do inter-session bookkeeping, learn new rules from new supplements, etc.? Because most RPGs - and I'm guessing Dragon Age will fall into this category - require more work than half an hour of setting up a board. Speaking for myself, I love the "homework," but others view it as just that...

Seanchai

Quote from: ggroy;347813Outside of TSR, which other game companies produced "basic box sets" of their games comparable in quality to the Mentzer basic D&D box set?  Were these "basic box sets" a success too?

Some guesses:

Traveller
Ghostbusters?
Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (the I.C.E. game based on the QuestWorlds solo adventure system; IMHO an extremely good intro set, had two follow-up products but suffered from being in the shadow of MERP.)
Das Schwarze Auge (Lower quality than Mentzer Basic, but managed to blow away D&D in Germany anyway.)
Midgard (IMHO the best intro box ever done, was relatively successful in Germany, yet way below DSA's success levels, even though it was in toy stores and department chains next to DSA.)
Chroniques Oubliées (Too recent to rate the success.)

Intro box sets that were in wide distribution and failed miserably:

Everway (way too expensive, way too artsy)
Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (the Decipher version based on CODA, just one big missed opportunity; uninspired and boring crippleware)

Quote from: ggroy;347813Outside of TSR, which other game companies produced "basic box sets" of their games comparable in quality to the Mentzer basic D&D box set?  Were these "basic box sets" a success too?

Aside from the stuff Dirk R. mentions, there have been:

Runequest : various boxed sets by Chaosium and Avalon Hill did well enough

Empire of the Petal Throne : originally came out in a boxed set and T.O.M.E. put out a boxed set, neither was commercially successful, but they certainly were influential.

ElfQuest : Chaosium liked boxed sets, did ok during the initial ElfQuest craze

Ringworld : again Chaosium liked boxed sets, not a big splash but not exactly a failure

GURPS : I believe they had a boxed set at one point, but it passed into rarity quickly as people preferred the book version

Top Secret : another boxed set and for a time the only spy RPG

James Bond/007 : had a boxed starter set and boxed adventure sets and was very popular in its niche

so quite a few boxed sets over the years . . . at least 15 or so not counting TSR stuff

That's curious: Both times I owned Chaosiums ElfQuest it was only a book, not a box.

I feel... gypt.

Quote from: worrapol;347909Aside from the stuff Dirk R. mentions, there have been:

Runequest : various boxed sets by Chaosium and Avalon Hill did well enough

Empire of the Petal Throne : originally came out in a boxed set and T.O.M.E. put out a boxed set, neither was commercially successful, but they certainly were influential.

ElfQuest : Chaosium liked boxed sets, did ok during the initial ElfQuest craze

Ringworld : again Chaosium liked boxed sets, not a big splash but not exactly a failure

GURPS : I believe they had a boxed set at one point, but it passed into rarity quickly as people preferred the book version

Top Secret : another boxed set and for a time the only spy RPG

James Bond/007 : had a boxed starter set and boxed adventure sets and was very popular in its niche

so quite a few boxed sets over the years . . . at least 15 or so not counting TSR stuff

Were these box sets full entire games, or just a basic introductions?

I suppose a "full entire" game could be something akin to the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, but in box set form.  A "basic intro" would be something more like the Mentzer or Moldvay basic D&D box sets.

Quote from: worrapol;347909Aside from the stuff Dirk R. mentions, there have been:

Runequest : various boxed sets by Chaosium and Avalon Hill did well enough

Empire of the Petal Throne : originally came out in a boxed set and T.O.M.E. put out a boxed set, neither was commercially successful, but they certainly were influential.

ElfQuest : Chaosium liked boxed sets, did ok during the initial ElfQuest craze

Ringworld : again Chaosium liked boxed sets, not a big splash but not exactly a failure

GURPS : I believe they had a boxed set at one point, but it passed into rarity quickly as people preferred the book version

Top Secret : another boxed set and for a time the only spy RPG

James Bond/007 : had a boxed starter set and boxed adventure sets and was very popular in its niche

so quite a few boxed sets over the years . . . at least 15 or so not counting TSR stuff

Don't forget Tunnels & Trolls, Marvel FASERIP, Star Frontiers, Mayfair DC...

Boxed sets are cool, but its where they are sold.  Boxed sets to existing RPG players is pretty well worthless.  Unless its got D&D on the cover.

Box sets outside of the existing dwindling market?  Now we are on to something!

Not to get off-track here, but IMO box sets rule.

 I good give two $hits about nostagia, box sets are great because you can put everything used to play the game ( dice, notes, pencils, maps ect. ) in there which makes it alot less hassle to lug around, not to mention less of a chance of misplacing things.

Other boxed set games:

Boot Hill
TORG
Conan (the TSR version)
Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes
Behind Enemy Lines
Lords of Creation
Powers & Perils
Flashing Blades!
XXVc
Valley of the Pharaohs
Gamma World

There are plenty more, but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head (besides the ones other have mentioned). All of them would be considered full games in the context of the time they were released. That is, they weren't considered introductions to bigger games.

By the way, to confirm guesses above: Ghostbusters was, indeed, a boxed game for both editions. Traveller was an iconic boxed game, both because of its classic black cover with the "Beowulf" mayday, and the fact it was smaller than other boxed sets.

EDIT: Oh! I actually still have the GURPS boxed set. I forget if it's first or second edition.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;348105By the way, to confirm guesses above: Ghostbusters was, indeed, a boxed game for both editions.

Yes, I knew that. The "guess" was about how relevant the example was with regards to the the OP (intro set and "successful"). I feel that I stretched the limits with Ghostbusters as it was not an intro set but a complete game (same for Everway), and for the fact that I don't know how successful it really was. (It did get a second edition, and it was a huge influence/stepping stone on the way to Star Wars d6.)
That's the reason why I also deliberately ignored many of the games that were mentioned since.

Another introductory box that was aimed at beginners was the Hercules & Xena RPG, even complete with custom dice. At first I loughed at it, but later I found the rule book in a bargain bin and found it to be a quite thorough intro game.

Quote from: ggroy;347912I suppose a "full entire" game could be something akin to the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, but in box set form.  A "basic intro" would be something more like the Mentzer or Moldvay basic D&D box sets.

Quote from: Captain Rufus;347933Boxed sets are cool, but its where they are sold.  Boxed sets to existing RPG players is pretty well worthless.  Unless its got D&D on the cover.

Box sets outside of the existing dwindling market?  Now we are on to something!

Funny thing is that in Germany, the second try to publish AD&D 2nd Edition (the first one, undertaken by a German distributor and TSR UK themselves, had failed before) used the box set approach for the whole core rule book line. That new publisher, Amigo, was WotC's exclusive distributor of Magic The Gathering, and they acquired the AD&D license as soon as WotC had taken over TSR.
They had analyzed the German market, i.e. what made Das Schwarze Auge was so successful, and mirrored the way DSA was produced: its rules spread out over several box sets, with several stapled booklets (and dice) in each. (They even mirrored the general layout of the boxes - the DSA boxes had an iconic dark grey stone border on their covers, so the AD&D boxes got a reddish-brown stone border!)
As successful board and card game publisher and distributor (with MTG in their portfolio) their products were carried by just about every toy and game store in Germany. So, for a brief time between TSR's downfall and D&D3, AD&D was sold as really old-fashioned boxed game. They even had a very competetively priced intro box, the AD&D Starter Set (taking a cue from MTG...).
So, ironically, the most successful run of AD&D in Germany were those years in which the game struggled in the US, waiting for a revision.

When D&D3 came Amigo translated the new version as soon as they could. This time they took a "best of both worlds" approach: the rules were published in the original hardcover format, but came in a box, for toy store/distribution reasons.

"Success" is such a relative term, it's hard to determine the line between successful and unsuccessful. Of the ones I listed, I'm confident that these could be called successes:

Boot Hill
Gamma World
TORG

Something like Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes had a moment in the sun, so I'd call it a success, but a brief, minor one.

Ghostbusters I'd also call a success using the same reasoning.

XXVc would probably be called a monetary success today, though it's often maligned. A lot of game companies today would probably be ecstatic to sell their games in the numbers XXVc did.

A lot of games in the pre-internet days would probably rate as successes by today's standards, even if they're barely remembered now. Conversely, a lot of games that are considered successes today would have been seen as failures back in the heyday of RPGs, the 1980s. Mostly this has to do with the internet, which disseminates information so readily; back in the day, a game had to sell really well to make it onto the average gamer's radar.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;348145A lot of games in the pre-internet days would probably rate as successes by today's standards, even if they're barely remembered now. Conversely, a lot of games that are considered successes today would have been seen as failures back in the heyday of RPGs, the 1980s.

True.

I just thought of another boxed set that could be viewed as an intro game (and a very successful one, to boot):
MERP (both the I.C.E. and the G.W. box versions)
Although it was de facto a complete game it did double duty as a lead to its "parent game", RoleMaster.

Quote from: ggroy;347912Were these box sets full entire games, or just a basic introductions?

I suppose a "full entire" game could be something akin to the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, but in box set form.  A "basic intro" would be something more like the Mentzer or Moldvay basic D&D box sets.

There was an age long ago when almost every game came in a box and was complete unto itself.